Being in the Room

The reality is, if we’re not in the room, we really don’t know what’s going on. In our ever-connected world where information on any and all topics comes flying at us incessantly, it’s made us all feel like we’re experts on everything. But we’re really not. 

Lately, we’ve all become armchair infectious disease experts. Or take sports as an example. The December cancellation of the World Junior Hockey Championships brought ‘experts’ out of the woodwork claiming it should’ve been cancelled all along or that it was ridiculous it was ended. With the Oilers ongoing struggles, thousands of general managers in waiting are asking “Why haven’t they gotten a goaltender yet? They’re not trying.” Truth is, unless we’re in those rooms hearing all the angles, actual facts, opinions, projections, implications, we really don’t know what’s going on. Being in the room, you can still disagree with the decisions made, but at least those opinions would be made having heard the realities and not the made up ones pieced together from the info thrown at us. 

In 2005 we at University of Alberta Athletics were hosting the men’s university hockey championship, with the final at Rexall Place. After reasonable ticket sales leading up to the tournament, orders went crazy the day of the gold medal game. Phones were ringing like crazy and prior to game time lineups were out the door at Rexall, and across the bridge over 118th Avenue. We received criticism from fans and the media for being unprepared. However, if those critics had been in the room with us, they would’ve heard the whole story. They would’ve heard us talk the day before about preparing for a 50% walk up of ticket buyers (based on tickets sold to that point), which according to our ticket partner would be extremely high and unlikely to occur based on to-date sales. They would’ve heard us discuss how to balance staffing the building for this unlikely potential walk up, without incurring unreasonable costs, for an organization that had to watch its dollars. 

We had a 100% walk up. We doubled our existing sales in one day - almost unheard of for live sport. That was a scenario only hindsight could’ve prepared us for. We were certainly not perfect in our preparation, but we planned to our best ability with the best info we had leading up. Only being in the room would have given our critics that perspective, not just the casual and incomplete observations from the outside. 

To paraphrase former US President Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the one who points out how the strong person stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming…”

Decisions seem easy and obvious with only a fraction of the information or considerations. The easy thing for any of us to do is to call out from afar others’ challenges or failings, perceived or real. So, imagine yourself in that room. Consider all the hard truths coming at you in making a decision. Then, and only then, are you really in a position to understand what’s truly happening.